By Elena Becatoros
The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece — Forest fires whipped by gale-force winds killed at least 12 people on Friday in the mountains of southern Greece, including six people trapped in their cars.

Across the country, more than 150 fires were burning, and the government appealed to the European Union to "send any help they can," said acting Interior Minister Spyros Flogaitis.

Winds gusting to nearly 40 mph in the Peloponnese peninsula linked to Greece by a narrow isthmus prevented firefighting planes from taking off, leaving only ground forces to fight the flames, with occassional help from helicopters and residents using their garden hoses.

Police evacuated at least three villages, while media reports some towns were surrounded by flames.

The fire department said at least six of the dead were trapped in their cars near the village of Komotheika in the western Peloponnese.

In Greece's deadliest day of forest fires in years, another six people died in the southern Peloponnese near the town of Areopolis. Five bodies were found near a hotel on the outskirts of the town, about 170 miles south of Athens, the fire department said. Authorities were working to identify the remains. A sixth person in the region — a firefighter — died of a heart attack, the department said.

A three-day heat wave, with temperatures up to 104 degrees, has left forests and shrubland parched.

Greece has suffered one of its worst summers for forest fires this year. Athens saw vast swaths of forest and shrub land on three of the four mountains ringing the sprawling capital go up in flames. A weeklong blaze in June devastated large expanses of fir and pine forest in a national park on Mount Parnitha, on the northwestern fringes of Athens.